


Gotta Paint That Water Red

by Wandering_Moose



Category: Starbound (Video Game)
Genre: Fanatical Religion, Gen, Hallucinations, Ooze, Panic Attack, Religious Horror, Sacrifice, avian - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-20
Updated: 2017-05-20
Packaged: 2018-11-02 19:06:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10950849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wandering_Moose/pseuds/Wandering_Moose
Summary: "Come ye viewless ministers of this dread hour! Come from the fenny lake, the hanging rock, and the midnight cave! The moon is red- the stars are out- the sky is burning and all nature stands aghast at what we do!"





	Gotta Paint That Water Red

She can't do it. These people- they might be nice but deep down underneath they're just as bad as the Stargazers who would shove people off the sandstone walls in praise of Kluex.

They screamed and hollered and stomped their way into a frenzy, some of them burying their nails and sharp things into their own flesh like a Martyr from her own village on the desert cross. It's everywhere and nothing, like a slice of home but completely wrong. The walls are closing in and she can feel their breath.

_“Now the moon's gone away and so many have led, we've gotta paint the water red...”_

The murky swamp water is below and she can't see more than thirty feet, it's sunset and when dusk strikes she won't be able to go anywhere but down underneath those waves. The alligators would drag her down below and feast on her rotting, bloated flesh and bleached feathers. Would her skull be the next one on the fence? Would her feathers be put in their wind chimes, would her bones become part of that godforsaken fence!?

The swamp air was thick with gasses and pheromones she couldn't identify if she wanted to, but she knew that her immune system was in a losing battle and she couldn't process it. She was just like the last hundred people they had brought here, strung up and left out to be picked clean by the vultures and flies.

_“Gotta paint that water red...”_

She can feel the walls closing in and her breath is sharp, she can feel everything and nothing. It's frightening to think back to the barbaric things that she left home to avoid, but she can't quite help it now. God dammit she wants to run outside and fly away, but that's just something that the Word of Kluex lied about. Her people can't fly, not unless they jump off something really high and even then they only last until they smash on the hard sand.

She'd seen the bloodstains on the bricks, scattered feathers in the winds. It gave her nightmares, she could have been one. She was so close the whole time, her family and her... there was no god. Not now, only the wretched red moon above the swamp and a house full of fanatical gelatin that walked and talked like an imposter human.

She can picture it so vividly, an altar of bones and skin stretched so thin it's almost transparent, blood spattered and rank. Viscera painting the white dead trees, the grass yellowed and vines hanging. The air is thick and her lungs are paralyzed by the spores in the air. The water is flowing and she can feel it filling her lungs even though she's on solid ground and everything is wrong. She doesn't belong.

The grey Ooze drags her to the altar and forces her back, sharp shin bones piercing her skin. They pluck out her feathers and howl like heathens at the red moon above, their gaze like a dagger in her skin. She can't breathe and it's all wrong, she proves she bleeds red and stains the grass underneath. They all chant and move forward, boards and nails at the ready. She is the messiah, the Red Moon's Herald. And they're going to kill her.

They put nails in her hands and truss her up in the trees, blood fresh on the wood. She pulls all she wants but she can't escape, she'll die up there with flies in her body. Maggots nesting in her heart and thoughts of home in her head, she passes her final breath when one of them cuts her down and buries her in the muck. The worms move in, the maggots hatch, the alligators come out to play. It's like the most beautiful art piece in the littlest bayou, and none of them can believe it.

It's a strong hand on her shoulder that brings her back to reality, a familiar grip and a familiar outfit. Acid is holding her shoulder in his hand, his soft slime tickling her feathers. She sighs, and grounds herself for a moment to remember that she isn't alone... until he sings along and she screams her lungs out. It blends in with the chorus of stomps, claps, and shrieks coming from all of them.

She runs up the stairs and slams herself in the first room she sees, the door locked and bed vacant. She dives in and puts her head under the covers until she can slow down enough to leave. She can still hear them from the floor below, hoots and hollers punctuated with claps. She wishes she was home, away from all this.

Tolli is hyperventilating under the blanket so much that she doesn't hear the door open. She can't see it, but Acid walks in, locks the door, and sits quietly at the foot of the bed with a glass of water. He might not understand it now, but he knows that his friend isn't okay and he's going to try to fix it when she comes out from her little blanket cave.

She'll be okay in time, he knows she well.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I'm a bad person who does bad things to other people's OCs. 
> 
> The "Paint the water red" song snippets? I actually wrote that. I'm expanding it into a full song soon!


End file.
